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My Tips for Blogging Whilst Working Full Time

Sunday, 2 October 2016

So I'm having a little problem at the moment and I can't put my finger on whether it's because I'm just really busy in my free time after work, or if it's because I've taken on a new job where I am working full time hours. Nothing is new there because I've worked full time hours all of 2016, so why am I finding it hard to get posts scheduled and ready to go all of a sudden? For months now I've managed to find a working schedule which works for my blogging and it was kick ass, I felt so organised, always having posts ready to go on the same days, and I found it was so much easier for you guys to keep up with my blog because you knew when I would post! For months I've felt so on it with my blog, but all of a sudden these past couple of weeks that blogging schedule just hadn't been working for me at all. Like I said I thought it was because I had just been too busy in my free time to sit down and schedule posts, but I feel like it's more to do with work than my actual free time away from my day job! A typical work day for me is 10am to 6.30pm, I'm definitely not getting up early enough to post anything and some days I just feel exhausted or I have things to do with my evenings. It's a new work schedule that I'm only just starting to get used to, but it's left me feeling a little disorganized when (like today) I'm sat here thinking oh crap, I haven't had any time in daylight to set up some fancy flat lay, take some snaps, get an outfit post together outside and put together a blog post! I don't like it, I'm usually so good at managing a busy life schedule, but this time it's taking quite a long time for me to get used to it! I keep reminding myself of my usual blogging schedule to form some organisation here on heartshapedbones, and I thought I would share it with you lovely people!

TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS IN BULK!! I feel like every blogger has this as their number one holy grail tip for blogging, but I can't get across how easy it makes everything when you can just sit down and edit a bulk of photos for your blog posts in one session! It saves time and that way you can sit down and write to your hearts content, not having to worry about your photos because they're already there waiting. Usually on my days off I take full advantage and spend the morning talking flat lay photographs and then heading out in the afternoon to capture usually four outfit looks, editing until tea time so I can start to work on the written part.

PLAN YOUR DAYS OFF. I don't mean that every week you should know exactly what you're doing on your days off, but I think you should definitely have one productive day to get everything done, and your second to do absolutely nothing. With working full time, five days a week I feel like if I don't have atleast some wind down time I burn myself out! At the beginning of summer I tried to be as productive as possible and only really had 'chilled out' time when I came home from work, but I was already exhausted from working all day so it never really allowed me any time to rest. I think having a full day off where you don't even look at your computer is so healthy because it allows your brain to rest, away from your day job and blogging! For me what works best is to be really productive on my first day off, normally at the beginning of the week, and then have my second day off as one to rest, knowing everything to do with my blog is sorted. On days where I work I tend to make small adjustments to things on my blog, casually write a blog post without any pressure.

SUNDAY FUNDAY. I've been blogging for just over two years now, and I think I've found a way in which I work best! I used to do nothing on Sundays, it'd be my chill day, but with me either working early mornings or having the day off, I find it best to blog all day and schedule everything ready for the week ahead! I schedule posts weekly, so I feel super organised when I can sit back on a Sunday night and know I've got everything ready for the week ahead! I know alot of people write a monthly advance worth of posts which I would like to try out one month and see how involved I still remain in the process of publishing if that makes sense, I feel as if you wouldn't need to touch your blog for the month, which I don't like the idea of. I love writing when the inspiration comes to me for my weekly posts. Yes I do have a plan of what I'm writing, but I can really get into the four ideas rather than 20.

SOCIAL MEDIA SCHEDULING. I need to get more on board with this than I already am, but scheduling your tweets and other forms of posts on your social media is a god given gift!! With me working all day I know when my blog post is published, there's also posts going out on my social media telling the people who follow me that there is a new content to read! I tend to also schedule links to my bloglovin, insta and other posts on my blog to keep my interaction up! It's amazing writing blog posts but when you want your blog views to grow, you need to be putting yourself out there. I can then interact, comment and talk more about my blog when I get home from work, so I always find time to dip into twitter land.

SEPARATE. How I prosper in the number of things I do is I like to keep everything separate, so if I'm at work I'm focusing on work, if I'm spending time with my boyfriend or friends I'm not secretly worrying about the boat load of blogging I need to do. I say need, I want to do. This is kind of a step after my scheduling point because I can happily relax and work when I've set up all my blog posts on the Sunday, I can go out mid week for a drink and not be sat there worrying about having to rush write a post. I think it's healthy to separate blogging, work and your other hobbies, I do love to write about my artwork, but I feel as if people come to my blog because it's a fashion blog more than anything, not me sharing what shade of paint I used on my latest portrait.

EQUIPMENT. When working full time you don't have the luxury of filming when the lighting is best, especially coming into winter I find when I finish work incredibly late it's so hard to put a finished post together because it's missing the photographs! It's annoying having to wait for my day off to take the photographs, so I'd say invest in some soft box lighting! It's going to make your nights not pointless, as you can take the snaps and write your posts! For snapping photographs on the go if you're on your way to work I'd even invest in a smaller camera, whether you're vlogging or wanting to take a cheeky outfit of the day before clocking in!

ITS OK TO SAY NO SOMETIMES. I can apply this to so many situations to do with blogging and working full time! It's healthy to go out and live your life away from the computer, but when you want to grow your blog into something successful as a career, sometimes you have to say no to people. Through out summer there have been many times where my friends have wanted to go out drinking, but alot of the time I said no to blog all day and get myself organised with content! I felt like there was no less thing to worry about as I had all my content planned for the week, and then you can go out drinking at the weekend. The same can be said for blogging, if you have so much on with working at your day job, maybe say no to the PR samples or commissioned work. You can't take too much on, it's going to frazzle your brain and nine times out of ten I end up stressing myself out.

PRE MONTH BLOG PLANS. This is the most helpful point I have, pre planning what content I'm going to write really helps me nail my schedule for the month. I'll take some time out of my day at the end of each month to sit down and plan what post I want to publish each day, then working around that plan to write them up. Sometimes when I get PR samples in the same month I move things around to add in these new posts, but it just keeps me organised and stops the block when you don't know what to write, because you already have your posts planned!

I hope you found this post helpful guys, just my two cents into what I've learnt from blogging whilst working full time hours! What are your top tips?